Charles Edward Stuart, The Young Pretender

This portrait relief in wax depicts Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender (1720- 1788). Charles Edward Stuart, a descendant of James II was the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland. The Jacobite forces were defeated by the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Culloden in 1745 and Charles escaped to France.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, low relief portraits in wax became popular in Britain and they were often exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Society of Artists and elsewhere. Waxes were used in a similar way to prints and medals, in order to disseminate the image of the sitter, or, like miniature paintings or silhouettes as portable mementoes.